Toby on Tuesday

'But he'll remember with advantages what feats he did that day'

Independence Day results:

National – 17,410,742 votes for Leave (51.9%) and 16,141,241 votes for Remain (48.1%)

Hambleton – 29,502 votes for Leave (53.7%) and 25,480 votes for Remain (46.3%)

Ryedale – 17,710 votes for Leave (55.3%) and 14,340 votes for Remain (44.7%)

Scarborough – 37,512 votes for Leave (62.0%) and 22,999 votes for Remain (38.0%)

Thank you to all who worked so very hard for this outcome.   In the words of Winston Churchill -

"In War: Resolution.

  In Defeat: Defiance.

  In Victory: Magnanimity.

  In Peace: Goodwill"

 
Until next Tuesday!

Toby
 

Toby on Tuesday

'This Scepter’d Isle'

In Shakespeare’s Richard II John of Gaunt declares,

 

“This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,

  This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

  This other Eden, demi-paradise,

  This fortress built by Nature for herself

  Against infection and the hand of war,

  This happy breed of men, this little world,

  This precious stone set in the silver sea,

  Which serves it in the office of a wall

  Or as a moat defensive to a house

  Against the envy of less happier lands,

  This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”

 

Now today there are too many in both 10 and 11 Downing Street, across Whitehall, working in the BBC and throughout our so-called Establishment, who see Shakespeare’s verses as racist.   They will all be voting Remain on 23rd June.   But if like me you see them as among the greatest glories of our language you must vote Leave, and encourage all your friends to vote Leave, on 23rd June.   Only by doing so can we secure “this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England” for our children and for our grandchildren!

 

Until next Tuesday!

 

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'A failed Utopia'

At last the Penny (or in this case the Euro) is starting to drop.   Thanks to the threat of Brexit, signs of sanity are starting to break out in the whole crazed Euro project.   Now Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, is one of the five Presidents who really run the EU.   From 2007-2014 he was Prime Minister of Poland, leading a deeply patriotic country that during the Second World War was the staunchest of Britain’s allies and without the courage of whose pilots the Battle of Britain might have been lost.   Indeed it was over Poland that we finally entered the war in 1939.   And sandwiched as they are between Russia and Germany, the Poles have learned to be cautious and circumspect.   So it is significant to say the least that during the past fortnight, Donald Tusk has made two speeches that could in large measure have been drafted by UKIP.  They are a warning shot to the Euro-zealots throughout the Continent and without our Referendum they would certainly have never been made.

 

In one he declared, “I don’t need to explain to anyone present here what dramatic consequences, also economic, would be brought about by Brexit...But we know that there are more threats, and the migration crisis has shown how difficult it is today to agree a common European answer and foster common determination in the decision process...We must and can avoid this scenario.   The condition is to depart from utopian dreams and move on to practical activities...Forcing lyrical and in fact naive Euro-enthusiastic visions of total integration, regardless of the obvious goodwill of their proponents, is not a suitable answer to our problems.   Firstly because it is simply not possible, and secondly because – paradoxically – promoting them only leads to the strengthening of Eurosceptic moods, not only in the UK.   As one of the key players of European integration Hubert Vedrine recently said, ‘You see governments and parties all over jumping up and down asking for more Europe, more Europe – if you want people to massively reject Europe, just keep on.’   An ideological drive forward can end in a disaster.”

 

And in the other, Donald Tusk again echoed UKIP when he stated, “It is us who today are responsible for confronting reality with all kinds of utopias.   A utopia of Europe without nation states, a utopia of Europe without conflicting interests and ambitions, a utopia of Europe imposing its own values on the external world.   A utopia of Euro-Asian unity.   Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe do not share our Euro-enthusiasm.   Disillusioned with the great visions of the future, they demand that we cope with the present reality better than we have been doing until now.   Today, Euro-scepticism, or even Euro-pessimism, have become an alternative to those illusions....That is why let us refrain from exaggerated rhetoric, because exaggeration, in whatever direction, is a heavy sin in politics.”

 

Together these two speeches represent an astonishing concession by one of those at the very summit of the EU project.   But Donald Tusk is an historian.   He has studied how ideologies can lead to disaster, how the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution which all began in those naive visions, full of hope, led only to death, bankruptcy, tyranny, war and human misery.   And he will know that the EU project now runs the risk of the same outcome across the Continent of Europe.   The cry of “More Europe” will only deepen the abyss into which it is now staring.   The Leave campaign was the catalyst for Donald Tusk’s two speeches which received so little coverage in our press.   And a big Leave majority on 23rd June can become the catalyst for a truly reformed Europe, based on nation states working together, co-operating, trading, playing to their strengths, keeping their identities, rather than some over-arching supranational monster, sucking the life out of the once great Continent.   To save Europe from itself in this way will be the true prize in this Referendum and fulfil Britain’s historic role as the power which has always restored balance and equilibrium to the whole Continent!

 

Until next Tuesday!

 

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'Il Principe and the Pauper'

Last week I wrote about the creation of a European Army, the logical outcome of the 2007 Lisbon Treaty’s plans for an EU defence union.   And just after this month’s Referendum Frederica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, will present her foreign and security strategy paper to the European Council.   We’ve a pretty good idea just what it will say, even though it is NATO and not the EU which has kept the peace in Europe since World War 2 .   And the reaction of our own heroic armed forces to being given their orders in future by an unelected Eurocrat, whose ascent to power came through Italy’s Communist Youth Federation, and not by the NATO command structure is just as easy to predict.   But today I want to write about another unelected Eurocrat, Mario Monti, former Prime Minister of Italy and now Chairman of the EU’s High Level Group on Own Resources.   His mandate is to increase the EU’s budget to deal with the Eurozone crisis, the migration crisis and the terrorism crisis.   And a fortnight ago the groundwork began for direct EU taxation across all 28 member states.

On 25th May, the EU’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee made an announcement which has received astonishingly little coverage and yet is crucial to all our futures.   For it called for every one of us to have a “European Taxpayer Identification Number” to keep track of every EU citizen.   In its own words, “Proper identification of taxpayers is essential to effective exchange of information between tax administrations.   The creation of European Taxpayer Identification Numbers (EU TINs) would provide the best means for this identification.   It would allow any third party to quickly, easily and correctly identify TINs in cross-border relations and serve as a basis for effective automatic exchange of information between member states’ tax administrations.”   In essence these EU National Insurance-style numbers would give Brussels the ability to track every EU taxpayer and lay the foundations for a new supranational direct EU Tax.   The report also calls for the EU to take over member states’ corporate taxation powers with a common corporation tax base.   The costs of the EU project are rising exponentially and Signor Monti is clearly looking to us all to bear them through some form of direct EU taxation.

And where the pure creative genius of Signor Monti’s plan lies is in its application to the Italian financial crisis, fast overtaking the Greek crisis as the point of maximum danger for the Euro project.   To say that the Italian banking system is on life support is an understatement.   17.9% of all Italian bank loans are in default, compared to 4.2% in France and 3.2% in Germany.   Italy’s largest bank UniCredit’s share price has fallen 40% so far this year and its chief executive has just resigned.   Trapped in the straitjacket of the Euro and unable to devalue, growth in the Italian economy has averaged just 0.2% a year since 1999.   Labour cost competitiveness has fallen by 30% against Germany’s since 1999.    Unemployment in much of Italy’s South is well over 50% and youth unemployment across the country as a whole is running at a tragic 37%.   Government debt is running at 134% of GDP.  Last year depositors in four small failed banks lost their life savings.   I could go on, but this is a country with an economy in disastrous freefall.   No wonder its former Prime Minister is looking to the EU, and not least to the two largest budget contributors Britain and Germany, to bail it out through some form of EU-wide direct taxation.

It was an earlier Italian politician, Niccolo Machiavelli, who declared, “If injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”   Both Signorina Mogherini and Signor Monti seem to have taken to heart the counsel of old Machiavelli, the ultimate political manipulator.   By seeking to subsume our armed forces into an EU defence system, Britain’s capacity for self-defence will finally be made redundant.   And by imposing EU wide direct taxation to shore up the failures of the Euro in Southern Europe, the capacity of our own economy for sustained recovery will be at an end.   Of course, Italy should be allowed to restore the Lira, reschedule its debts and work its way back to growth, but that would be to question the whole Euro project itself.   Far better to call for “more Europe”, land the bill at the feet of those backsliding Brits through EU direct taxation and watch our pusillanimous politicians fall into line.   David Cameron has claimed that Britain will not have to contribute to future Euro bail-outs, but of course a system of direct EU taxation with transfers to Southern Europe would not count as a bail-out at all.   Old Machiavelli would have been hugely proud of Signor Monti – and of Signorina Mogherini – seeing them as pure geniuses in the very finest tradition of European politics.   And they have clearly learned their lessons from old Niccolo, the master himself! 

Until next Tuesday! 

Toby